Et In Arcadia Ego
by Smoochy
Summary: Proinsias gets up every morning, puts on a tie that's choking him like a boa around his neck, and takes the train to work at half seven - he needs to be there on time to finish the report, so Schrieber wouldn't yell at him. If he wants to just off himself most days, or if he doesn't remember why he's here in the first place, well, he doesn't think too much about it.


"Have you finished the report now?"

Proinsias blinks, trying to see through the thick fog that seems to surround him. There's Mr. Schreiber standing right in front of his desk, very dissatisfied by the look of him.

"Mr Cassidy!" sharp, like a knife stab. "I ask you again, have you finished your monthly report? It's half four, and I told you to get it on my desk by three."

Shite, he thinks, double shite – triple fucking shite. He hasn't finished it, he barely even started it. He blinks some more, clearing his bleary eyes. Monthly report, yes, but what month is it even? Stealthily, he tries to sneak a glance at the calendar on the far wall of the office.

November, yes, alright.

Schreiber is looking at him like at a disgusting piece of shit on the bottom of his shoe. Proinsias doesn't blame him.

"I promise you, sir," he says, adjusting his tie anxiously. It feels like a boa around his neck, choking him, making sure he suffocates slowly and painfully. He clears his throat. "I promise I'll get it to you within an hour, yes?"

"Like hell are you gonna get it within an hour," Schreiber thunders, self-righteous, drawing attention of everybody in the bloody office to the two of them. Proinsias can see the tops of other employees' heads sticking out from behind the walls of their tiny cubicles to watch the show. Someone's being told off – such bloody fun. "Half an hour is what you have, Cassidy," Schreiber leans down, theatrically, and stage whispers "Or I'm gonna fire your Irish balls, just give me one more reason."

He swallows. He can't afford to lose another job, he just fucking cannot. He nods frantically, as Schreiber throws him another disgusted look and walks away proudly.

Proinsias swings around in his chair, puts his headphones on, no music – just more quiet – and, panicked, immerses himself in the bloody report.

It's not the first time he's forgotten what month it is, as sometimes he can't tell for the life of him what year he's living in. Days drag, painfully slowly, like the neon liquid in a lava lamp, pouring together in one miserable colourless mess. He wakes up, shaves, puts on his cheap unfitted suit, that's too wide at the waist and too short at the ankles – naturally, he got it in a shit second hand store. He eats tasteless breakfast from a box, catches a train to work, stuffed with people and reeking of sweat and misery, all the passengers looking the same exhausted drenched mess to him.

Come to think of it, he can't tell an exact amount of time, he's been living in his rat's arse of a flat, or, generally even, in this colourless ugly town. He can't remember why he came here in the first place.

He spends about an hour and a half on the train each morning because that's how long it takes him to get to the closest station to work. He tried to entertain himself by looking through the dirty windows of the train, at first, but there's nothing outside that could catch his eye, just miles and miles and miles of cold greyish grass and dark dry land. Mostly, he just stares at the fingerprints on the glass, guessing who might have sat there before him, in this place, and if they were any happier, lead a more interesting life, felt any more alive.

He hasn't felt alive in a very long time. If asked, he wouldn't even remember when was the last time he didn't wake up feeling like that day would be the last, that day would finally be the day when he owns up and fucking kills himself. But that's not something Proinsias could or would ever do, and so he doesn't.

That doesn't mean that the desire to just end this ever went away, though.

He exhales at the window glass, draws an unhappy face in the condensation from his breath. Where his finger has made the glass relatively clean, glimpses of moody grey sky from outside crawl into his line of vision.

He turns around, looks at the passenger next to him. It's a woman with dark messy hair, looking so tired as if all energy was drained out of her, like an empty box of juice, squished and creased, with no liquid left inside. Proinsias would feel sorry for her, if he had any authority to do that, if he looked any different – _felt_ any different – himself. Her face is so plain, so unremarkable, it's enough for him to blink once to forget completely what she looks like.

The woman is reading a book, and he leans over to her slightly, trying to get a look at the pages. He frowns.

On every page, there's one single word written all over, again and again and again:

 _Jesse_

He's in pain suddenly, everything around him losing colour and shadows and smells. It hurts everywhere at once – his legs, his fingers, his head, his heart. The pain is so overwhelming in its intensity, he thinks, with some relief, that he might die, finally, at last. He screams, limbs twitching uselessly, as the horrible heart-wrenching sound escapes his lungs, his chest, his very soul. He screams and screams, thinking _I'm not gonna survive this,_ and he wishes it to stop and to go on, because at this moment, here and now, he feels alive.

And then it stops, as abruptly as it began. All of a sudden, he's not in pain anymore.

He looks around anxiously, afraid he's caused a scene, but no one is looking at him, not a single glance from any of the other passengers who's been standing around while he was yelling in pain.

No one gives a kitten's arsehole around here, he thinks indifferently, going back to looking at the window with an unseeing gaze.

Maybe that's better – maybe no one would notice him, no one would torture him with empty chatter, and no one would ask anything of him. No one would push him, and no one would ever be disappointed with him.

That's better, he thinks again, blinking through the fog, _that's better._

The thing is: Proinsias doesn't remember when he came here and he doesn't remember why. He lives in a flat, too small and disgusting for any self-respected hobo, and he doesn't know when he is going to move on. His future is none-existent in his mind, as he never imagines any other life beyond his piece-of-trash flat and the ugly grey town.

He feels as though he is dying a bit, every day, like more and more of him simply vanishes into nothingness and soon, there isn't going to be much of anything left.

He doesn't remember where he came from, either. Schreiber calls him Irish, so he must come from Ireland, but for the life of him, he can't remember a single thing about that place. He definitely should, but there's no point thinking about it, and so he doesn't. Should it really be important where he came from? He's here now, and that's all that matters.

He goes through this pathetic parody of life with astounding indifference. There are cockroaches crawling on the couch in his flat, and in the sink, and in the bathroom. He doesn't do anything – he feels like one of them, anyway.

The thing is: sometimes, so rare it's almost not there at all, but sometimes he wakes up disoriented, thinking _I shouldn't be here_ and _I forgot something important._ In those moments, everything around him feels unreal and strange, and he turns around frantically, his heart hammering in his chest, as if looking for something, _someone_ , and not finding it.

And then the feeling passes, and he puts on his suit and goes to work.

The thing is: he feels he deserves far less than what he has, anyway.

"Report, Mr Cassidy, where is it?"

He looks up: Schreiber, standing by his desk, leaning on the wall of Proinsias's tiny cubicle. He looks disgusted, as usual. The weird thing is that, for some reason, Schreiber is talking with an accent. Proinsias thinks it sounds familiar, like something he might have heard before a lifetime ago or in another life altogether. He frowns, trying to place the weird accent.

 _fucking shitehole town of Annville, mate, I'm telling you_

Proinsias blinks and blinks, but thick fog clouds his vision, and Schreiber's voice reaches him as if from underwater. He feels surreal and out of place, and as he realizes that, everything around him just stops.

He looks around the office, and nothing moves, people around him frozen in place, in weird poses mid-action, as if a masterful sculptor built their statues and replaced everyone with a copy made of marble. There isn't a single sound around him, the sudden silence deafening, his ears ringing with it.

 _This is wrong_

He doesn't know what's happening around him, or maybe he's just losing his mind, which was bound to happen one of these days. His heart is beating violently in his ears, and he closes his eyes shut, willing for it to stop.

"Cassidy! The report?"

Schreiber no longer speaks with an accent. He opens his eyes, and everything is back to normal, people moving around, the never-ending buzzing of phones, printers and fax machines. Except when Proinsias glances at the calendar on the far wall, and it says _February._

Confused, he looks at the window. Everything outside is white with snow: trees, cars, streets, roofs of other buildings.

He could have sworn he has just finished a report for November. He has just had this same conversation with Schreiber, what seems to him like a couple days ago, but winter just doesn't come overnight, does it?

"I'm on it, sir," Proinsias says and gets to work. He has apparently lost several months' worth of time, and he really shouldn't lose any more.

Walking down the streets, unwilling to watch the pedestrians cross the street to avoid him, Proinsias looks steadily on the ground. He's made it a rule to never have eye contact with anyone, as more often than not, random strangers remind him of someone he thinks he once knew, or look at him with disappointment, judging him for all the sins he must have committed, but cannot recall.

That is why it almost knocks all breath out of him, when a firm hand falls on his shoulder suddenly, as he hurries back to the station. He jumps, turning around, wide-eyed and shocked, to see a man behind him, the man's hand still on his shoulder.

Proinsias stares, frozen in place, limbs useless and heavy at his sides. The man is – well, _different_ , to say the least. He is bright and unforgettable, with clear dark eyes, looking right at Proinsias, not _through_ him, as if he's actually someone worth looking at by this beautiful tanned man. He looks extremely out of place here, on this crossroad, in this whole bloody town. With his trimmed beard, and his tanned skin, and piercing dark eyes, and unruly black hair, he looks especially out of place next to Proinsias, a grey and muddy waste of space that would have been more useful, if mere oxygen took it up.

The man is looking at him with so much expression, Proinsias forgets how to breathe.

"Cass," the man says, quietly, intently, like a lover would whisper _I love you_ to their other half. Proinsias swallows, the word resonating in his brain, making his head hurt. There's pressure behind his eyes, and Proinsias shuts them tight. "Cass," the man says again, and this time it sounds like a plea.

"Sorry, mate, do I know you?" Proinsias says, the forgotten 'mate' slipping out of his mouth on its own accord. His insides are trembling, bumping into each other. Truth be told, he doesn't remember the last time he actually spoke to someone other than Schreiber.

The man stares at him with wide pained eyes, guilt all over his features, if Proinsias is to be any judge. The man is beautiful, really, the only thing bright and full of colour in this godforsaken nameless place, among these endless streets of identical buildings, a station and a Tesco. Proinsias cannot imagine what reason could possibly force a man like that to step foot in this town.

The man is silent for what feels like days, months, years. Proinsias thinks, carelessly, that should he look at the calendar right now, it might show him August for all he knows. He doesn't care, though, not really, as looking at this strange man in front of him is everything he'd rather be doing.

"I'm Jesse," the man says, finally, and for a second Proinsias thinks he sees clericals on the bloke's collar. But the man is dressed in a simple black shirt and jeans, and at the sound of his name, a whole bunch of emotions rise within Proinsias, a messy clew of joy, hurt, pain, hope, anger. It's overwhelming and confusing and makes his head spin, but he shakes Jesse's hand with his own unstable and trembling one. Jesse's handshake is strong and confident like he has nothing to be ashamed of.

"Alright," and it's hoarse, barely a whisper. He clears his throat with an awkward hem-hem. "I'm Proinsias. Proinsias Cassidy."

Jesse closes his eyes briefly, as if in pain, his eyebrows drawn together. Proinsias watches him, drinks him in like he's in a desert and Jesse is a well full of cool water.

"Cassidy," Jesse drawls, accent thick and painfully familiar to Proinsias's ears. Jesse rubs the bridge of his nose with two fingers, then looks up at the sky as if it might give him the answers he seems to be looking for. "You think you might wanna join me for a beer, Cassidy?" he says, still looking at the heavy clouds above.

The question is unexpected and confusing, considering Jesse is a perfect stranger he's just met on a street. Cassidy is sweating profusely, and, instinctively, he wipes his sweaty palms on his slacks, which hardly helps the situation. Right this moment, his heart hammering against his ribcage and head spinning, Cassidy feels alive.

"Sure, mate, yeah," he says, surprising himself, and Jesse smiles sadly with something akin to relief. "But I don't really know if there're any pubs around 'ere, man."

Jesse is looking at him strangely, as if expecting him to go on or say something else. Cassidy is lost for words, though, lost in this odd situation to begin with, so he stands there awkwardly, already regretting his decision to go anywhere with this bloke. But, damage done, he waits for Jesse to take his offer back and leave, taking all the colour with him.

"I might just know a place," Jesse says instead, turning on the spot, and Cassidy follows, relived Jesse's not going to see his pathetic face while they are walking.

"So," Jesse drawls, slowing down his step and letting Cassidy catch on so they would walk side by side. The scattered mess of rubbish, mostly consisting of foot-tangling plastic bags and empty cartons of juice, flies around as Jesse steps through it, walking ahead with the confidence of a sea pirate who knows exactly where the treasure is buried. "You've lived here long?"

"Um," Cassidy says, ashamed at his inability to answer such a simple uncomplicated question. He sympathizes with Jesse who must be imagining that Cassidy would be able to hold a real human conversation. His cheeks heated, he looks down at the pavement. "Not too long, no."

Jesse nods with an expression that says he's cataloguing carefully everything Cassidy is saying, each gesture and word and sound out of his mouth put on a little shelf to examine later. That in mind, Cassidy still feels no need to filter his speech in front of him.

"And what d'ya do here?" Jesse asks with a calculating sullen glance at him.

"I, uh," he is _pathetic_. With not quite mild embarrassment, he swallows, before continuing. "I work at the office," he finally says, vaguely.

What does he do here, exactly?

"I see," Jesse says in a tone that implies he doesn't see fuckall. Cassidy is getting annoyed all of sudden: who the bloody fuck is that man, showing up here out of thin air, disturbing Cassidy's routine, thinking he knows everything about him, and Cassidy's not as naïve as he used to be, so Jesse – along with his bloody God complex – can well sod off back to his fucking church –

"Here we are," Jesse says, looking at him closely. Cassidy shrinks under the scrutiny, his thoughts momentarily forgotten. The anger stays though, and he feels mildly confused about the reasons for it. They are standing in front of an Irish pub, completely out of place between identical grey two-storey houses, as if someone cut it out of a freshly printed photograph and pasted on top of whatever filth was supposed to be there originally. It's bright green, the head sign full of shamrocks and pictures of leprechauns, garlands hung across the main entrance. Cassidy stares at it, transfixed, and fights the urge to back up a few steps.

"Let's come in, yeah?" Jesse says, as if making sure Cassidy hasn't changed his mind.

The door twinkles quietly as they step inside, apparently letting the owner know about the new customers. Inside the pub bares no resemblance to what it looked from outside, all trace of Irishness gone altogether. The heavy wooden door bangs shut behind them, and Cassidy blows out a breath he hasn't noticed he's been holding. He surveys his surroundings.

There's a filthy bar to the left, a couple of large men sitting at it silently, sipping their beers; Cassidy can't get a look at their faces. There's a guy with a bandaged arm sitting in the far corner by the 'Toilet' sign, glaring at Jesse silently from across the room. Jesse doesn't spare him a second glance. Everything is so quiet thatin the silence, Cassidy can hear a branch tapping at the window, mice skittering in the walls. The bar is dim, filthy and smelly, but, strangely, Cassidy feels more at ease here, than anywhere he's been to for a long time.

Granted, he hasn't been to much of anywhere, besides his flat, the office and the occasional food store.

Jesse gestures for them to sit at a booth, closest to the exit. Cassidy – like all the time up till now – follows him like a good dog. Jesse slumps at the seat across the table, looking at him silently, expectantly, eyebrows slightly arched on his forehead.

"Listen, man," Cassidy says, feeling as if he's letting Jesse down somehow – unable to meet whatever irrational expectations Jesse might have of him. "I really don't know what you want from me 'ere, truly I don't! I mean, I'm usually back home d'is time of night, yeah, and I'm not sure I follow the line of yer thinking 'ere –"

"Cassidy," Jesse interrupts him, leaning forward with elbows on the table now. "What d'ya wanna drink? It's on me."

"Alright, then, mate, how abou' Glenfiddich 19' if ya feeling generous, aye? None of that yankee Jack Daniels shite, I'm tellin' ya, Jesse, yer not gonna appreciate the prize difference the next mornin'."

He feels comfortable here, sitting in this bar in front of Jesse, drinks between them, the light reflecting in the glass. Cassidy zeroes in on the glass in his hand, whiskey on ice, but he doesn't remember Jesse ordering anything from the bar.

"Righty then," he says, raising his glass in a toast, "to all new beginnings an' what have ya," they clink their glasses lightly, before taking a sip of their drinks. "Fucking savage, mate! Is t'at really the Glenfiddich? Ooh, t'at's sound, but I'm afraid, I can't return the favour, love, as I'm basically living in a box. So next round's on ya again, man, sorry!"

But Jesse doesn't look offended, instead he's staring at Cassidy with an urgent expression, as if something vital is about to happen right this moment.

The crap old telly above the bar turns on suddenly, an old familiar film playing on mute. Cassidy gazes at it for a few seconds; he knows that movie.

"Ah man, The Big Lebowski, would you look at t'at," he says disapprovingly, and Jesse turns around to look at the telly with such speed Cassidy almost expects to hear the bones in his neck crack.

"I like Big Lebowski," Jesse says in a shaky voice, almost desperately, while still watching Cassidy with an expression as if he's a ticking bomb about to go off.

"Nah, that's a shite film," Cassidy insists, taking another sip, "Bloody overrated. But, I just knew you'd like, you seem like the type, Padre."

He freezes, his hand with the glass stopping in the air, mid-action. He doesn't know why he said it, why he called Jesse 'Padre', but as the word slips out, unbearable pain pierces his temples. He thinks he might have screamed, as he clutches his head with both hands, glass falling from his weak fingers with no sound, as it crashes on the table, brown liquid spilling; or maybe the pain just makes his ears stop working. Jesse is staring at him with eyes wide as saucers, hands reaching out across the table to grasp at Cassidy's shoulders.

"Cass, Cass," he says, giving Cassidy a shake, "Cass, look at me! _Look at me!"_

Through pain clouding his vision, Cassidy squints at Jesse.

"Why did you call me that? Why, Cass?!" Jesse yells too loudly, too seriously, too urgently. Cassidy wants to crawl under the table to hide from his pushing eyes and hands. It's very annoying he can't answer Jesse's question, as he simply doesn't know the answer. He doesn't say anything though, can't make his mouth move, his head throbbing in pulsing crushing pain.

The bar around him looks surreal and ephemeral, like something out of a long-forgotten dream. Everything around him starts losing colour, like and old TV turned to black and white, as Jesse shakes him and shakes him and shakes him

"Who am I, Cass? You know me, c'mon!" Jesse is yelling in the stunning silence of the bar. No one is looking at them, as if they're not there. "Who am I?"

"I – I don't –" Cassidy mumbles, pain striking again and again, and he thinks he is going to pass out, everything grey and miserable around him, like what he's used to, like what he deserves.

"What are you doing here, Cass?" Jesse shouts, and Cassidy suddenly has a burning desire to _bite_ him, what the actual hell

" _Cass, who am I_?" Jesse thunders, shaking him. " _Who am I –_

Proinsias wakes up.

He surges forward, sitting up on the mattress, breathing small and shattered. He looks around wildly, but he's alone, there's no one in his room, but him, even though he feels there should have been someone.

He lies back down, squinting at the weak light coming through a filthy window, painting the room a miserable shade. There is no one around him, he repeats to himself.

There is no one.

Proinsias just needs to get his head straight. Sometimes, when the rain is pouring outside, heavy raindrops hitting the window monotonously, when he feels like he hasn't seen sun in _years_ , when he lays on his squeaky old mattress with unidentifiable stains on it and wishes to put a shotgun to his head, he thinks, _I need to get my head straight._

There's no shotgun, of course, but even if he had one, he knows he's too much of a coward to ever use it on himself.

 _Don't wanna walk around with an arsehole on me face, Padre_

Sometimes, he hears voices in his head, talking and conversing, like something of a forgotten memory. At times it feels like an animal inside him rolling to its feet, prowling forward, growling low; other times it feels like another part of him crumbles, vanishes into thin air.

Somewhere between him coming home from work in March and him blinking at the tattoos flickering in and out on his skin in June, Proinsias goes a little crazy.

One day he walks by the mirror, throwing a short glance at it, and stops dead. An old man is staring back at him in the reflection. The man looks tired, so tired, and old – he must be a hundred years old _at least_ – and in his eyes, in his mouth, in every wrinkle of his face there's a screaming desire to keel over and die.

Proinsias doesn't look at the mirror at all, after that. He slides around his flat without looking anywhere at all, afraid to accidentally catch a reflection of the old man who looks dreadfully like him, and Proinsias doesn't think about it, tries to continue living his measly life, mechanically, like a well-oiled machine.

In his tiny cubicle he looks over the report he's finishing before he has to give it to Schreiber, and his blood goes cold. Without any idea how it could have happened, there is a single word written all over the seven pages of his work, _Jesse Jesse Jesse,_ an infinite string of the name on both sides of the paper.

He just needs to get his head straight, he tells himself desperately, but it's the end of August now and he can't even remember how long he's been here.

He wanders around the town once, something telling him – like a whisper in his ear – that there should be a familiar place, a place he has already been to and just needs to remember. He wanders the half-empty streets, slides along the narrow alleys, through piles and piles of foot-tangling rubbish, when, hours – or days – later he realizes he's walking in circles, and there's nothing beyond the identical streets with identical buildings and identically exhausted people. Upset without any idea why, he returns back to his flat, head hung low in defeat.

When the old man shakes his trembling withered finger at him from the reflection on the window, Proinsias pretends he hasn't seen anything.

He just needs to get his head straight.

Proinsias looks through the train window with an unseeing gaze, the walls slowly closing in and the deafening silence beginning to whisper and giggle in his ear, when a voice behind him speaks, downing out the laughter ringing in his head.

"Feels like it's been raining for a long time here," a man says, and Proinsias turns to look at him.

The man sitting next to him is nothing short of beautiful, even with his pained eyes and a sad smile. He looks somewhat familiar to Proinsias, but remembering things he has long since forgotten makes his head hurt, so he doesn't bother. He feels an overpowering urge to touch this wonder of a man next to him, to feel his warm skin under his fingers, make sure Proinsias is not imagining him.

"Me and sun are not on t'e best of terms," Cassidy says, the words out of his mouth before he can process them. He frowns, trying to think if the statement he's just made bears any truth at all. He can't remember the last time it was sunny, but he doesn't feel upset about it in any way, although he supposes it would be nice, if anything, simply to have a break from the rain and the grey.

Jesse is looking at him with that strange expression again. Cassidy's fingers ache to touch him, so he sits on his hands nervously.

"You do apparently miss it, if it's not here," Jesse mutters, a sad kind of smirk stretching his lips. "Who would've thought."

"What?" Cassidy says, stupidly. He feels strange, a tugging sensation at the bottom of his stomach that slowly turns into searing pain.

Jesse just looks at him with an expression one would look at the dog at the vet table that is about to be taken down.

"Where are you going?" Jesse asks him instead. The pain in his stomach grows and intensifies, spreading up and down his body.

"I'm goin' to work, Jesse, where t'e fuck else would I be goin' at half seven in t'e bloody mornin'?" Cassidy bites back, the pain throbbing in his teeth now. "Some of us actually have _real_ jobs, y'know, somet'in' to do besides sittin' on yer arse all day long."

"What do you mean, Cass?" Jesse demands, his entire body immediately tense and alert. "What are you talking about?"

Cassidy can't stand it anymore. He writhes and twitches in his seat, willing for the pain to stop, for Jesse to stop asking all these stupid questions, suddenly feeling immensely used and betrayed and just _hurting all over,_ his tired body unable to deal with all the pain. His blood is boiling in his veins, hot everywhere, each cell of his body burning as if on fire.

 _Would you let me burn?_

"And what the fuck do you care, Jess, hm?" he snaps, no longer holding himself back in front of this self-righteous arsehole. "Do tell me, 'cuz the last I remember you _literally_ wouldn't piss on me, if – _when –_ I was on fire!"

Several things happen at once.

The passengers around them are gone, as if they didn't exist in the first place; just one moment, they are not there anymore.

Cassidy doesn't have the time to process it, though, because Jesse is screaming and yelling, but Cassidy cannot make out any of his words. Something inside him snaps and explodes – like a bomb finally going off – and through the sudden numbness, he sees in a window reflection that he is on fire, flames licking at his arms, his shoulders, his neck.

As if in slow motion, he looks down at his fast blackening hands, skin burning and withering, falling off in sticky black bits, as the nauseating smell of burnt human flesh hits his nostrils. Briefly, he has time to think, _Jesse_ and _Please_ and _Finally_ before everything goes red, and he just wants to sneak one last glance at the man beside him, please, just one more time, please, please _please_ –

"Your report, Mr Cassidy, do you have it?"

The disgusted tone strikes Proinsias as he is about to go to the loo. He looks at the calendar at the far wall at of the office, reads ' _October'_ in curvy red letters.

"I'll get right onto it, sir."

What he doesn't know won't hurt him, Proinsias thinks, unwilling to theorize about the nature of the things happening to him. He chews on stale noodles he's scavenged out of the broken cupboard above the sink. At the mirror on the other side of the room, the wrinkled old man is repeating each and every action, his withered trembling hand holding the fork shakily.

"I know you said you liked Chinese," Jesse says, leaning on the countertop next to Cassidy. "But this is just sad. How long have these noodles been rotting in there?"

"What I don't know, won't hurt me, Padre, yeah?" He says with a mouthful of noodles that taste more like plastic than food. "That's the mystery better left unsolved."

"Speaking about mysteries," Jesse says, eyebrows up, and Cassidy jolts a little from side to side nervously. "You figured out what's happening to you yet?"

"It doesn't matter," Cassidy says desperately, knuckles white against the countertop when he's gripping the edge of it. They're entering a territory Cassidy dreads to go near to, and his head starts to spin a bit. "I'm alright, Padre, I just need to get my head straight."

"Sure you are, Cass, yeah, _sure you fucking are_ ," Jesse says, shaking his head and looking above as if asking heavens to help with Cassidy's exceptional stupidity. He moves away from the countertop, turns around so his whole body is facing Cassidy. "If you're so alright, Cass, then please enlighten me as to where the _fuck you are_ right now!"

Cassidy stares at him, incredible, his head spinning and throbbing. Isn't it weird he starts hurting and aching every time he sees Jesse?

"Where the fuck does it look like to you, Jess – we're in my fucking flat, ya idiot!"

"Where, Cass, _where?_ " Jesse says, his hands gripping Cassidy's shoulders. He looks desperate and miserable and Cassidy wants to kiss that expression away from his face, if he remembered how the act of kissing is done. "Where is this flat? What is this town called?"

That is one question that effectively shuts Cassidy up. He gulps for air, opening his mouth and closing it like a fish out of water that's about to get gutted, but he cannot remember the name of this town, this place he's been living at for the last – well, he doesn't remember that, either. For the last god knows how long. He should remember, he should know, he thinks, and searches his mind, every dark corner of it that he's never wanted to examine, and there's a long string of names and places coming out to the light of day – Dublin, Limerick, Birmingham, London, Erfurt, Cluny, New York, Moscow, Berlin, _Annville_ –

He screams, pain piercing his heart with a wooden stake, as the name of the town rings in his ears. Through the pain, he tries to say it quietly – _Annville –_ and it sounds boring, _stale_ – like the noodles he's been chewing that have been laying there for ages, but there's also something terrible about the name, something worse than the pain twisting his heart in his chest.

"Annville," he says out loud, but there's no one in the room to hear him. He is alone.

 _There should be someone – Jesse – there should be Jesse here, by his side_

 _Annville,_ he says again, but chokes and coughs and he sees a bunch of red drops flying from his mouth; he's coughing out blood. His heart is in so much pain, he can't even scream anymore, he can't breathe, he can't do anything but take the knife from the kitchen table that wasn't there five minutes ago, and cut the bloody thing out of his chest.

His heart falls to the dirty floor as he looks at it, feeling nothing – no pain and no anxiety, his head ringing with the silence, with lack of emotions. The heart lays on the filthy floor in front of him, beating weakly, and immediately there're cockroaches running to it, covering it, each trying to get a piece to devour, and Cassidy thinks, _there will be nothing left._ The bloodied knife falls from his weak fingers to the floor with a hollow sound. The old man in the reflection in the glass looks at him with sympathy.

"What have you done, Cass?" the man suddenly standing beside him chokes out, and as Cassidy looks at him, he remembers – _Jesse_ , this man's name is Jesse. The man is looking at Cassidy's pathetic half-eaten, rotten heart on the floor with a mixture of pure terror and guilt. He shuts his eyes, turns around to not look at the bloody mess on the floor anymore, the expression on his face the one of self-deprecation and misery. Cassidy can sympathize with that.

"Innit easier t'is way?" Cassidy says, softly, sadly, not wishing to hurt Jesse any more than Jesse's already managed to hurt himself. "The sodding t'ing's useless anyway, innit, except for hurtin' and achin', and I say, fuck it, Padre, I'm just too tired, and I'm just _too old_."

He doesn't know why he says that, but he feels old this moment, he feels positively ancient, so old that the pyramids could've been build under his watch. The old man in the reflection closes his eyes wearily, seemingly a little more at peace.

"Cass, yer gonna be needing that back," Jesse says in a shaky, shattered voice, pointing at the heart on the floor. Gingerly, he comes closer, then bends and picks it up tentatively in both hands, waving the cockroaches away, gently wiping the dust and grime away.

"I don't bloody need it anymore, Jess," he says, tearing up suddenly, inexplicably. He swallows at the lump of cotton and bile at his throat. "Throw it the fuck out, burn it, I don't fucking want it!"

The sound of his yelling rings in the room long after he's done speaking. He knees give out and he falls down on a squeaky chair, looks down at his knees, at his hands covered in blood. He watches the twitchy shadow Jesse's body casts on the floor, but he won't look at the man himself.

"Cassidy," Jesse whispers, crouching in front of him on the floor, forcing himself into Cassidy's line of vision. "I'm not throwing it away, darlin'. I'm gonna take it and keep it safe for you, until you want it back, alright?"

The endearment burns itself on the inside of Cassidy's ears, repeating itself over and over and over. Jesse stands, the ruined heart held in his hands with so much care and attention, it might as well have been made of gold and diamonds.

He looks away, unable to look at the man anymore. The truth is, Cassidy might not remember where he is or who this man in front of him must really be, but he feels hurt – even without his fucking heart – he still bloody hurts, whenever Jesse is around. There's pain and there's hurt and there's the feeling of being a victim, being betrayed, being used and thrown out like useless piece of garbage, and he wants to curl into a tiny ball and not exist.

He shouldn't be around Jesse, he thinks, it hasn't gone well the first time, and it's not going to go any better this time, whatever 'this time' might mean since time itself is about none-existent in this place.

Even without his damn heart, he _hurts_.

Proinsias doesn't dream. One moment he closes his eyes, and the next, he opens them to find that morning has broken. It feels like a split second has passed, maybe not even that, and he goes to work sleepy, unrested. He can never get enough rest, no matter how early he goes to bed.

He thinks there are moments in his life, which he can distantly recall – mostly the ones in which the beautiful man is by his side – and his life in between them is one giant mass of dull grey matter mashing together. Too bad he keeps forgetting the man's name – almost as soon as they're done talking – so Proinsias can never initiate any meeting between them. Sometimes the man just appears by his side all of a sudden, making Proinsias yearn for more and more of him, and sometimes he disappears, and Proinsias wait and waits until he forgets who the man was in the first place. He can't even tell how long it is that he waits.

Time has long since lost its concept to him now. He can't tell anymore what happened yesterday and what happened two years ago, but granted, nothing much happens anyway to help him tell the days apart. Still, the chronology is messed up, and he falls asleep in September and wakes up in August.

He feels like he is living his life in circles. He goes to work, comes home, again and again, and maybe one day – if he's lucky enough – there'll be the beautiful man there, adding some colour to this tragic roundabout of life Proinsias cannot take the exit from.

He feels like someone took someone else's worst moments, worst memories and emotions – or lack there of – and built them into this town, into this office buildings, and made Proinsias live through it over and over again, without purpose.

The old man in the reflection – with a tattooed bird between his thumb and index finger – stares back at Proinsias with empty unseeing eyes.

One evening, when Proinsias is walking home from the train station, the sky flickers red and green above him, and as he stops, shocked, a dead bird falls at his feet from the sky, and then another one, and another. Birds fall all around him, dead as doornails, and as he looks up to look at the sky, the _sun_ shines down on him, merciless and remote.

 _I gotta get out of the sun, fuck_

Panicked, without a particular reason, other than ' _the sun is fucking bad, need to get out, get out, get out get out',_ Proinsias hurries to hide from it, anywhere, under the first shadow he sees. He turns around frantically, and his blood goes cold.

Instead of the empty rural streets, he is standing in the middle of a desert, miles and miles of burn brown grass and dried up land stretching around him as far he can see. There's no trees, no mountains, no nothing, and the world around him looks especially strange and flat, as if someone put a giant poster of the scenery around him, unnatural and flat.

It takes several seconds for him to realize that the lack of depth around him is caused by the lack of shadows.

He glances down at the dry ground, and no matter how many times he turns around, moves to lift his arms, his legs – he is casting no shadow.

The sun is laughing at him hoarsely from the sky.

He feels like he is going to start burning again ( _again?_ ), so he runs, everywhere and nowhere, just forward, through the foot tangling, tall and dry straws of grass sticking out of the ground, scratching his knees and thighs through the suit.

And then, abruptly in front of him – as if it wasn't there a second ago – a church stands in the middle of the prairie, small and ugly, yet real and there, and there's _shadow_ at the side of it, at its front porch. Like a dying man, he spends the last amount of energy he's got left to crawl up the little steps. Once in a shadow, his body collapses, devoid of strength to keep itself upright. Proinsias lays there, on the dusty floor, face down, trying to hear anything but his own ragged breathing.

"I see you've found it," Jesse says from somewhere above. Cassidy lifts his heavy head to look up the man looming over him. "Jesus. I can't believe you've finally found it."

"Found what?" he asks stupidly, his ability to think gone with the energy to stand straight.

"The church, Cass," Jesse says gesturing vaguely around them. "Do you remember?"

Unbidden, flashes of memories – as if someone else's – populate his mind: late night conversations, smoke swirling slowly to the dark invisible ceiling, flashes of Jesse's eyes in the darkness, reflected in the moonlight; smell of cheap whiskey and tobacco filling his nostrils.

 _Vampire, huh? Sounds like fun_

His hand reaches on its accord to touch his teeth. There are no fangs, and he doesn't know why he expected them to be in his mouth. The tiny grey attic flashes before his eyes, wooden walls around an old mattress on the floor, sunlight crawling in through the small window and he's got to move out of its way before a sunbeam touches his skin.

He blinks, and the vision is gone. The silence around him is thick and heavy, but then something catches his eye, and when he looks at his hands there are tattoos all over the skin of the back of his palms, his forearms, going up and up in greyish fading ink, disappearing behind the sleeve of his shirt. There are symbols he has no idea of the meaning of, names of people he's never met, digits that don't mean anything to him. There is an outline of a bird between his thumb and his index finger, and looking at makes his teeth hurt.

"How did you find it, Cass?" Jesse asks him, stretching out a hand to help him get up. Cassidy takes it, stands almost straight on his jelly-like legs. For the first time he notices he is taller than Jesse, and the knowledge makes him weirdly bitter.

"I 'aven't the slightest, mate, I was goin' home, to be honest, and t'en…" He stops abruptly, unwilling to tell Jesse about the strange visions – or hallucinations – he's been experiencing. "It just, I dunno, it was just there, and I needed t'e shadow."

Jesse looks at him for a long time expectantly, and then sighs heavily. "You wanna come inside?"

Cassidy doesn't know what he wants. He isn't exactly a man who _wants_ something, who has a goal and works to achieve it. He's a drifter, he struggles through a day to keep himself alive, and what he wants – what he really wants – is for it to be finally over.

 _But that's not true_ , a voice in his head speaks suddenly _, you also want Jesse, you want him all to himself, you want him to take you away from all this, you want him to find the missing pieces and mend you back together_

He does want that. When Cassidy is alone at his carton box of a flat, and the thick layer of woolen silence separates him from the rest of the living breathing world, he gets flickers of images flashing through his mind, of black stubble, of dark eyes, of cowboy boots and the man wearing them with his husky scratchy voice that drawls out his name warmly, affectionately, as if sharing an inside joke. He blinks back the sudden tears of hurt and righteous anger coming up in an ensemble with those images, and torn apart, he _yearns_ for that man whose face he cannot recall, for his presence, for his touch.

He yearns for Jesse now, and even though he is not an idiot, he can't put two and two together, the big picture falling apart when he tries to piece it together. Something big, something dreadfully important that he should've known – should have _remembered_ – keeps slipping away like sand, and his mind screams at him to get it back.

"Yeah, Padre, sure, dinner's waiting, huh?" he says, and again, Jesse throws him a weighted look full of too many things for Cassidy to decipher. He walks past Jesse and enters the church. This time, it's Jesse who follows him, warily, each cell of his body seemingly on edge, ready to prowl forward like a predator. He radiates danger and power, but not the good kind, if there even is such a thing.

Cassidy falls on a hard wooden pew, Jesse sitting down across him. There's a bottle of whiskey in his hand, and Cassidy is pleasantly surprised.

"I can't say, I'm very religious, mate, mind you, but even I reckon drinkin' in church isn't in the preacher job description," he says, reaching for the dusty bottle. The liquid inside looks atrocious and smells even worse, but he feels he hasn't drunken any alcohol _in ages_ , so he happily takes a swing of it.

"What do you mean?" Jesse says urgently, never for a second taking his watchful gaze off him. Cassidy just wants to unwind him, unfurl him, make him relax, and his hand reaches out on its own accord to touch the man, but he stops it in time. He grasps the bottle in both of his wayward hands instead.

"I mean you surely must've covered t'at bit in a – in a – some _preachering school_ or what other yokes have ya, I dunno, but it really should be right t'ere with t'e rest of them bloody testaments, mate, 'thou shalt not get arseholed in holy church'. Am I right? But then again, I'm not really sure what yer job is."

 _He won't kill me_

Cassidy blinks the memory of someone's voice away.

Jesse might as well be shaking there's so much tension in the line of his shoulders, his arms, his jaw.

"You know who I am?" Jesse says sharply, hopefully.

"Corse I do, mate, yer a massive twat of a Holy Man, is what you are, Jess," Cassidy says, pointing at Jesse's clericals, tight around his neck, reminding Cassidy of his own tie. Jesse looks down at himself, touches his neck. Cassidy wonders if Jesse was dressed the same five minutes ago, but cannot recall Jesse's damn outfit.

"Do you know who I am, Cass? Who I am _to you_?" Jesse repeats in voice that is at the same time hopeful and resigned.

Cassidy stares at him, the question making no sense. They are sitting in a church in the middle of desert, drinking whiskey branded ' _Whiskey_ ,' smoking one fag after another, in silence surrounding them so deep, Cassidy thinks he might hear the grass growing, if anything ever grows or even changes in this place. The silence is thick and heavy around them, weighted with things unspoken and turning into sinister whispering in his ears, and Cassidy feels trapped in a bubble of stillness, of a moment from long forgotten past. He feels like he's experienced something like this before, or maybe he just saw someone else experience it, but he feels wrong, something missing that should be there. His hands shake, yearning to do an action he hasn't come up with yet, aching to be put to use, do something to fill the void of something that Cass cannot quite put his finger on, but misses all the same. He thinks he remembers as he concentrates on the thought – just for a split second, he thinks he knows what he's lost, what he's forgotten – but a moment later it slips out, slides between his fingers, hiding into the furthest darkest corner of his mind. It's like trying to catch a tiny goldfish in an ocean of water with one's bare hands, so he gives it up, still aching, still yearning.

"I t'ink I'm missin' somethin'," Cassidy tells Jesse, acknowledging his problem out loud for the first time.

Jesse sits a little straighter in his pew. "Yeah? Like what?"

"I'm not sure, mate," Cassidy says. His wandering gaze stops at Jesse's lips, full and lush, looking soft. Cassidy wonders what they would taste like should he have a chance to find out. He doesn't, not today and not ever, because this wonderful beautiful man – full of life and colour and barely contained energy – would never let him find out, would never let him just be there, be exactly what he is, an _abomination_ –

"Cass," Jesse lets out, quiet and small, unsure. He leans closer across the space between them, puts his palms on Cassidy's bony thighs, warm against the cold skin. The shiver runs up and down his body from the spot where Jesse's hand meets Cassidy's leg, and he lets out a weak moan.

Of course, he doesn't remember when anybody last touched him. The void in his chest pulses, burns, turns into phantom pain where something else is supposed to be. He pats his slacks pockets, the inside pockets of his jacket: maybe he would find what he's lost there, but he feels empty and hollow instead.

He pats his chest and his fingers touch a hole, deep and rough with dried coagulated blood along the edge.

 _Right_ , he thinks, _I've lost a heart, that's what's been missing._

But it doesn't feel right, as something he's yearning for is much bigger, much more massive and empowering than a pathetic half-rotten organ. He misses something else, something he can't name, but can suffer the lack of.

"Cass," Jesse whispers again, intimate and pressing, hot breath barely reaching Cassidy's cheek, warm palms burning a hole in Cassidy's trousers.

He wants, he just wants so much, but he's not sure what exactly it is that he's yearning for. He closes his eyes, shaking, swallows the cotton at the back of his throat.

He shouldn't be there, he shouldn't be with Jesse, he shouldn't have let him in so close, in under his skin, shouldn't have let Jesse infect every cell of his body. He should have fucked off away from him when he had the chance, but he didn't, and now look at him.

"I want –" he tries to say, his mouth and lips too dry to form words, "I need –"

"Cass," barely a touch of breath against his face, before a mouth touches his own. Cassidy flails, arms nervous mess at his sides, as Jesse traces the edge of the hole on his chest with butterfly-light touch. Jesse's tongue enters his mouth, warm and wet, and Cassidy is hot all over, a tugging tremor at the bottom of his stomach, at his crotch. He thinks he whimpers, or it might have been someone else, because nothing else exists beyond the point of Jesse's lips touching his own.

This is what he's missed, this is what he's yearned for, and with the realization comes the crushing hurt, squishing him like a cockroach under a man's shoe. Unable to do anything other than stay where he is – wrapped in Jesse like in an affectionate straightjacket – he lets the pain wash over him, fresh and persistent, reminding him that he is here, that hurts and therefore he exists.

"Jesse, Jesse," He pants, pries himself out of Jesse's arms. "I need – I want me heart back now, I t'ink."

The smile Jesse gives him is tattered and crumbling at the edges. He gets up, taking all his warmth with him, Cassidy instinctively reaching out after him. Jesse walks down the aisle between the rows of pews, straight to the altar, and bending, takes out what looks like a heavy wooden chest, like something out of pirate movie, and Cassidy half expects it to be filled with treasure.

"It is treasure, Cass," Jesse says and he realizes he's said the last part out loud. "Maybe not for you, but's treasure for me."

In the entire world Cassidy could never find appropriate words to reply to that, and so he doesn't. He watches silently as Jesse fishes out keys somewhere from his person, and one by one, opens many metal locks of the chest.

Inside is his heart, by not at all like Cassidy saw it last: this one is red and clean of dirt and mouth droppings, full of fresh blood, beating energetically and rhythmically.

"I kept it safe for you," Jesse says barely loud enough to hear. His eyes are closes tightly, as if he is in pain. "Tried to mend it the best I could."

Gingerly, Cassidy bends down and picks his heart up. It beats strongly in his hands, spurting red blood everywhere, and he just stares at it. He can't believe he's lived so long without it, but at the same time he's not in any hurry to put it back. He hesitates.

"Cass," Jesse says beside him. "C'mon, Cass, you know you need it."

"Yeah," Cassidy says hollowly. The crucified Jesus looks down at him from the cross, and he suddenly feels as ancient as God himself. He staggers to the nearest pew and falls on it, crumpled by his exhaustion. "Yeah, I will probably need it again."

"We'll just have to take better care of it, yeah?" Jesse says softly, sitting down next to him. "It'll be better this time, I promise. I'll take good care of it for you, Cass."

 _You are the one who ruined it in the first place_ , Cassidy wants to say but doesn't.

"Let me," Jesse asks, and Cassidy lets him, gives him his heart tentatively as Jesse takes it with both hands, barely breathing. A line of severe concentration pierces the space between his eyebrows, as he stares at the pulsing beating organ in his hands. "C'mere, Cass."

Cassidy turns to him, weirdly hopeful and afraid. He uncrosses his arms from where he's been holding them over the hole in his chest protectively. Jesse surveys the damage, his eyelids fluttering, breathing ragged through his nose.

"I'm sorry, Cassidy," he says in a shaky hollow voice, that makes shivers run up Cassidy's spine. The sheer tragedy in Jesse's voice is something to be wary of. "I'm so, so sorry."

"For what?" Cassidy says stupidly, feeling out of context.

But Jesse doesn't answer; instead he carefully, slowly, puts the heart where it belongs, and it fills the hole like a missing piece of puzzle coming in place. The pain floods him, a scream leaving his mouth, and the very next moment, Cassidy remembers. The long darks nights in a tiny, smoke-filled church, sharing a bottle of shite whiskey. The uncomfortable seat at the booth, Jesse's affectionate look from across the table making it worth it. Wandering through the half-empty town of fucking Annville, dozen layers of clothing hiding him from the sun. Jesse, sleepy in the afternoons after nights of heavy drinking, and gulping down water in the haze of hangovers. The look on Jesse's face, _I like having you around_. _What do you know about Tulip?_

The burning of not so human flesh, atrocious smell hitting his nostrils. Lying in the sand, Jesse standing still above him like God himself passing judgment, as he writhes and screams and screams.

His life, unlike a simple human's, isn't short, and there will always, _always_ be a payback. Cassidy remembers now.

"Finally," Jesse's voice says from far, far away.

The pain, pressing down on him from everywhere at once, is not survivable.

Cassidy dies.

Sometimes, when you don't sleep right for a whole week, you just want to get it all out on the weekend; you barely move your legs by the end of Friday, and Saturday you just spend in bed till six in the evening. You've slept too much, though, and the world around you feels a little strange, a little unfamiliar as you come back to it from the world of dreams. Maybe, you've had such a brilliant dream – you don't want to wake up at all, but the thing is: you've been asleep for too long, and the first few minutes the world around you is wrong, is full of aliens. You feel like you don't belong, as you look around the bleary room, sounds muffed, and that other world that you've just left – that one feels like the only thing right.

Waking up for Cassidy feels like all that multiplied by a million, like waking up after a twenty-year long coma he got into after crashing his skull. He hurts all over, every inch of his body aching and throbbing. He can't move, or he just doesn't want to move, he's not sure at this point.

He stares at the ceiling above him, without any idea where he is, without particularly caring, too. The colour, the smells and sounds around him are overwhelming after what felt like years and years of almost black and white, mute scenery.

Jesse is sitting in a chair beside his bed. Cassidy doesn't wish to look at him if he can help it.

"Cass," Jesse calls, voice low and heartbreaking. Cassidy ignores him, stares at the ceiling silently, like a mad person. He wonders if he has, indeed, gone mad. _That_ would serve Jesse right.

"Cass, _please,_ " Jesse is saying desperately, voice breaking.

Cassidy doesn't have anything to say to him, so he keeps still. Even if he wanted to, it's too soon, he is too raw and hurt and miserable. Somewhere between him waking up and Jesse asking him if he was alright, Cassidy's voice has run away. Mute and vengeful, he shows no sign of even hearing Jesse.

"I ain't gonna leave, Cass," Jesse says, resigned and guilty. "I'm gonna stay here, and take care of ya should you need anything."

 _I needed_ you _, and you couldn't even take care of that,_ Cassidy thinks bitterly. Jesse can just fuck the fuck off for all he gives a shit right this moment.

Jesse doesn't fuck off, though. He stays put in his chair by Cassidy's side except for bathroom breaks, but those are rare and far in between.

Cassidy keeps staring at the ceiling.

Jesse leaves once, the next day, after Cassidy spent the entire day in bed, except for going to the loo a couple of times, joints sore and aching. Jesse's body twitches, surges forward to help him up, but one glare from Cassidy is enough to make him sit right the fuck back down, and Jesse doesn't try to help after that.

He leaves the room the next day, and Cassidy is almost – _almost_ – surprised, but then the door opens and Tulip comes in, beautiful and deadly, just like Cassidy remembers her. She enters quietly and sits in a place Jesse's been occupying all this time, and just stares at him for a few minutes. Cassidy feels generous enough to tear his gaze from the ceiling and look back at her.

"Jesse's an idiot," she says sharply after minutes of silence. Cassidy arches his eyebrows slightly at her. "He's a self-righteous moron with a god complex and issues burnt in so deep you might as well cut him open with that chainsaw to get at them."

She sighs heavily, then looks outside the window. Cassidy follows her gaze: it's sunny outside – of course it's fucking sunny, it's _Annville fucking Texas_ , and Cassidy bets there hasn't been a single rainy day since he's been gone. But then again, he hasn't been gone long, not technically.

"Jesse's an idiot," Tulip says again, tension gathered in the line of her shoulders. "But he hasn't slept a minute since what's done to you, and I have never seen him more obsessed with anything than he was while trying to get ya back, Cassidy."

He shuts his eyes wearily, turning away from her. He doesn't want to hear her talk about Jesse, doesn't want to think about Jesse, doesn't want to remember his very existence.

But Tulip's not done.

"He is an idiot that made a mistake. I fucking big mistake, I'll give you that, but _a mistake_ , still." She looks about as willing to have this conversation, as an average woman is willing to pay a visit to a gynecologist. Cassidy can sympathize. "I've known him since we were kids, so trust me when I say – Jesse's had an entire lifetime's worth of time to hurt me. Which he did."

She pauses, swallows, her voice oddly uneven.

"But I love him all the same, because that's the way it is around Jesse fucking Custer. I'm sure _you_ can relate." She pierces him with an all-knowing stare, from which Cassidy feels like shrinking in a ball, because _yes, yes, he can relate_. She shakes off an invisible speck of dust from her blouse, her hand ever so slightly shaking. "I'm telling you all that, Cassidy, because I can't see Jesse hurting, can't see him this miserable. And he is miserable, been punishing himself ever since you've been… gone."

Cassidy sneaks a glance back at her, gets caught in the act as she is looking him square in the eyes. She inhales deeply, as if getting ready for something incredibly difficult.

"Jesse loves ya, Cassidy," she says finally, quickly like pulling a band-aid off. The tension leaves her body instantly, as if nearing that simple admission was the sole reason for it in the first place. "He loves ya a different way that he loves me, and it took me a long time to admit that, even to myself."

Her words make his heart beat loudly in his ears. It is still strange for him to feel his heart beat, to feel a pulse in his neck, on his wrists. He's gone too long without it. When he first caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the mirror, he thought for a moment someone else was standing there, as he complete forgot what he looked like, with the old man gone. He spent a long time reacquainting himself with his face.

"So now listen closely, Cassidy," Tulip says lowly and dangerously, and Cassidy leans closer to her without thinking. "Don't fuck it up. I get it that you're hurt now, and ya have every right to be, but don't forget you're not exactly all sugar and sunshine yourself."

That said, she gets up, throwing one more look at him. He can't know what's happening to his face at the moment, but something is definitely happening there, because Tulip's expression softens a bit.

"Just forgive him," she says and moves to leave the room. She stops at the door, turning back one last time. "And don't fuck it up, Cassidy."

She leaves, the door slamming shut behind her with a hollow sound. He turns around, lying on his side, facing the wall, and wishes to just fucking die already. At least that's nothing new.

He hears Jesse come in and sit down in his chair quietly. Cassidy doesn't acknowledge him.

It's been a week of mute staring at the ceiling, silent lying in bed, barely moving at all, when Jesse puts his foot down.

"Ok, Cass, that's enough now. Snap out of it, will ya!" he says, crossing his arms on his chest.

Cassidy is so surprised by such impudence, his head turns to look Jesse in the face on its own accord. Their eyes meet, and Cassidy hurries to look away.

"I said that's enough!" Jesse says loudly, and grabs Cassidy's shoulder in an attempt to get him moving.

And just like that, Cassidy's voice is back.

"Don't ya fucking touch me, you bloody fucking cunt!" Cassidy wheezes out, voice hoarse and rusty after such long silence. Shocked by Jesse having the fucking _audacity_ to command him now, Cassidy chokes a bit on his hurt, on his anger. Jesse is shocked into stillness by the sound of his voice, his expression weirdly hopeful. That just adds more fuel to the fire of Cassidy's rapidly growing anger.

"Cass…" Jesse starts to say, but Cassidy cuts him off.

"And who t'e fuck d'ya t'ink you are to order me 'round, huh? I thought t'ose angels made it clear even to t'at redneck li'l brain of yers that you're not'ing but a speck of fucking dust on t'is earth, Jesse, so can fuck off and leave me the fuck alone!"

"Cass, I'm sorry!" Jesse yells, trying to outshout Cassidy, whose voice has reached incredible amount of decibels during his rant. "I can't tell ya enough how sorry I am!"

"I'm afraid sorry's not gonna cut it," Cassidy bites off, fists clenched together, his body ready to prowl at Jesse, bite him, tear him apart. Too bad he can't do either of those things, though.

Jesse just looks at him silently, hands up in surrender, apparently trying to calm Cassidy down.

"Do you remember anything?" Jesse asks after a while in a quiet broken voice. "Anything at all?"

"I remember all of it," Cassidy says sharply, enjoying the expression of guilt on Jesse's face at his words.

"Ah, I was rather hoping you wouldn't."

"Well, I do," he repeats and thinks about Schreiber yelling at him, about the endless monthly reports, about the choking tie around his neck, smelly crowded trains, his flat, so tiny he now realizes a human couldn't have possibly lived there. Of course he didn't realize it at the time, though – that was the whole point. "I remember every bit."

Jesse looks down at his feet guiltily. The silence that drags between them is prickly and vicious.

"I can't recall how it happened, though," he admits reluctantly, unable to look at Jesse's anguished face any longer. Jesse shifts his weight from one leg to another.

"Well, after you… burned," Jesse begins, squeezing the words out through clenched teeth. "I gathered you up, and me and Tulip took you back to the church, do you remember that?"

Cassidy shakes his head.

"Tulip explained to me, then, how you truly needed blood to heal, how she's seen it with her own eyes, and I –" he falters. "I didn't let her. I didn't let her, Cass, and I'm so sorry, but I wasn't really myself at the time –"

"Sure you were," Cassidy cuts him off cruelly. "You just had the opportunity to show all yer nasty dark corners at last, been given t'e perfect environment fer it."

Jesse doesn't even argue. He continues, "Well, anyway, Tulip wanted to drive to the hospital and steal blood bags from there, and I told her to not even think about it. I was angry, furious even. I told Tulip to leave. I _told_ her, and she did."

He pauses again, rubs his eyes, the bridge of his nose. He looks so tiny and miserable this moment, Cassidy forgets his fury for a second and just wants to hold him, to fix it all.

But there's no fixing it now, and Jesse continues.

"Then Genesis took over, I just couldn't stop, Cass. I told you to _heal_ ," he looks Cassidy in the eyes. "We never tested it, you know, never explored how far it could go, what limitations this power had. So your body healed, just like that, from scratch, without any blood."

Cassidy nods shortly, distantly remembering it now – the pain of skin growing forcibly back, tissue regenerating without any fuel to make it do so. Now he knows how it happened.

"You were screaming and writhing, and it was awful," he swallows, Adam's apple bobbing visibly. "But I still didn't stop, all that power going through me, filling me up… You woke up, all healed, but still in pain, and you yelled at me, and I yelled right back, said that I won't abide a murderous vampire in my father's holy church."

Jesse stops again, but this time it feels like his speech has reached its highlight.

"You yelled at me to 'go to hell," Jesse says very slowly, visibly struggling to get the words out. "And I – I wasn't myself, Cass, I swear to ya, I didn't mean to –" his voice shakes and shatters, and Cassidy thinks there's liquid Jesse's his eyes. "I didn't mean to do it, but the power of it – I told you –"

" _I'll meet you there_ ," Cassidy finishes for him, and he remembers it all now: the fight, the screaming, the fear that he'd forgotten how to feel, Jesse's voice thundering over him, ordering the impossible things, and Cassidy's body having no choice but to do them anyway.

"Yeah," Jesse confirms quietly.

"So what you did was not only send me to Hell, but created a rule that I had to necessarily _see you there_? Good job, Preacher, real good this one."

"I'm so sorry, Cass," Jesse says for what feels like a hundred's time, as his voice crumbles pathetically. "I swear I didn't mean to do it, I just said it, and you were – gone."

"So how did you manage to get me out?" Cassidy wonders, remembering the beautiful strange man sitting next to him on a train. He forces the memory out of his mind.

"I asked those angels for help. They promised to help me if I gave Genesis up," Jesse says.

Cassidy keeps silent, that piece of information making it a bit easier to look at Jesse. At least the fucker no longer had the power to control the world around him, and the fact that Jesse gave it up for him makes his heart melt a little.

"It isn't easy, though, getting someone out of Hell," Jesse says to fill the dragging uncomfortable silence. "The thing is, as the angels told me, you can't just go and pull someone out. Our minds and souls are very complicated things," he smiles a tiny bitter smile. "What you've build there, Cass – you should've seen it. It stretched and stretched all around you – those identical buildings and people – it took me ages just to find you there. But, like I said, I couldn't just pull take you away."

"They told me that the hardest thing about getting someone out is that Hell is called that for a reason, and people _forget_. You had to _remember_ , Cass. You had to remember who you were and where you were, you had to realize you weren't living an actual life, 'cuz otherwise I would've pulled out a vegetable."

Cassidy closes his eyes, sits back down at the edge of the bed. He can't keep his eyes closed for long, though, there's just too much Hell burned on the inside of his eyelids.

"I'm sorry," Jesse mutters again.

Cassidy remembers the man again, the same man standing in front of him now, but in a very different place, the man who he's yearned for, ached to touch, to be wrapped around, to never let go. And even though everything around him changed, _this_ hasn't. His hands still want to reach out to Jesse, fingers hot at the tips with the desire to feel the warm skin, lips prickling from the memory of Jesse's mouth on them.

Cassidy doesn't want to feel this way, but you can't always get what you want, can you?

"I never wanted to hurt you," Jesse murmurs, his finger wiping at his eyes furiously. "I promise you, I never wanted to. And I understand if you want to leave now, I do, all I'm asking is that you forgive me some day."

His voice breaks completely by the end of his little speech, and Cass can't bear this anymore. He reaches out and grabs the front of Jesse's shirt, yanks him close to himself until their noses are touching.

"No more playing God, Jesse," he growls, before kissing the man on the mouth, furiously, aggressively, desperately. Jesse's body goes slack against his.

They kiss for what feels like ages and mere seconds, but Cassidy isn't good with telling time anymore. He feels hot and aching all over where Jesse's limbs touch him, burning up from the proximity, from the warmth.

He can never get enough of this.

"Someone would show up, all willin' to cut ya open again, if I won't be here to keep an eye on your sorry arse, you soddin' twat," he says when they break apart from the lack of air. "Which would serve ya fucking right."

Jesse doesn't respond, though, his hands clinging to Cassidy in a death grip, as if afraid he might disappear any moment. Cassidy lets him.

Maybe Tulip was right, he thinks, as Jesse's fingers grip him so tight, it'll most likely bruise, Jesse's hands shaking with the effort. Maybe Tulip is right, or maybe he is, and this is exactly what his payback is – Jesse fucking Custer, the man of God with a power superior to the God himself.

He wonders if he can ever forgive Jesse, if he can ever trust him again. Jesse breaks down in front of him, his body shaking with mute, shoulder-heaving sobs, and Cassidy realizes, _yes, I can_. He doesn't have that many people who give a fuck about him to afford to lose the only one he loves back. Tulip was right, he thinks, as he soothes circles along Jesse's spine, hurting at the sight of Jesse hurting, and just how mad is that?

With time, he thinks he can let it go. With lots and lots of time, he will forget.

Good thing he has all the time in the world.

-End.


End file.
